


Under The Upas Tree

by Jocondite (jocondite)



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-08
Updated: 2009-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-21 09:38:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jocondite/pseuds/Jocondite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>home is where one starts from. as we grow older<br/>the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated<br/>of dead and living. not the intense moment<br/>isolated, with no before and after<br/>but a lifetime burning in every moment...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under The Upas Tree

It’s spring and Ryan is waiting for Brent to bring the kid he thinks might be able to play keyboard for them over. He's late, and Spencer’s started sighing and checking the time on his phone.

The doorbell sounds, impatient, a failed electronic rendering of a bell chime. Ryan goes to the door; his fingers curl around the round handle, and then with a flick of his wrist, small bones twisting, the handle turns and the door opens.

Brent's standing there. Over his shoulder is a boy with mended glasses and thick dark hair awkwardly cut across his brow, humped absurdly at his ears. He backs up a little across the porch as Ryan opens it, as though the door opens out instead of in; a strangely skittish movement like a mouse rethinking its course, a reverse in magnetic polarity. His eyes are round and dark, red mouth twisted to one side in flexible apology.

“This is Brendon,” Brent says, “the dude from my math class, he's in band-”

“Come in, come in,” Ryan says, edgy, and behind him Spencer is setting up the keyboard.

-

“If I can’t sing it right, why don’t you sing it _yourself_ , Ross?” Brendon asks, voice hard and mean and the shadows under his eyes violet.

“Don’t you think I would, if I could?” Ryan exhales, hard. “Think how much bullshit I could cut out-”

“ _If_ only you could sing, right?”

“Fuck you,” Ryan says, and Brendon glares back at him. They’re sitting on opposite sides of the hallway, backs against the grimy walls. It feels like they’ve been fighting the same fight for the last week, in the studio and back in the little apartment the label’s put them up in; they can’t seem to switch it off, the frustration and the nervousness and the pressure. It’s working – they’ve tracked half the album, hammering it out on the anvil of argument, but Spencer had lost it and locked them out of the apartment a few hours ago, and told them they could come back in when they could stop fighting about the fucking album.

Ryan’s narrowed eyes shift to the closed door, reminded. “Asshole,” he calls out, and thumps at it with much less force than earlier. No one answers.

“We get back in, we should stage a coup, lock them out,” Brendon suggests, and Ryan tilts his head, considering.

Brendon holds out his hand, far enough away across the hall that Ryan would have to lean forward onto his knees to take it. “Truce? White flag, one-time-only offer. Expires the first time you start bitching about my singing.”

Listening to Brendon sing still makes something tighten in his chest, awe and jealousy and something more, a sort of helpless gratitude. Their music, his words, Brendon’s voice – they fit and work together and fuse into something that makes him fiercely proud. It makes it worse when the rich flexible swell of Brendon’s voice falls short of delivering the words just right, not the way Ryan would if it was his.

“It has to be _right_ ,” Ryan says, helplessly. “It has to be – it has to be right, it has to be worth it.”

“I know,” Brendon says, and scrubs the hand not wavering in the air through his hair, hissing a little through his teeth. “Of course I know that. Why do you think we’re even arguing?”

“Because you’re a dick,” Ryan suggests, but he smiles a little crookedly, and shakes Brendon’s hand.

-

Ryan hates it when Brendon comes back from the Academy’s bus stumbling and bright-eyed, hates even more that he knows it makes him uptight and humourless and a pain in the ass, like Brendon tells him one night.

Tonight he’s not going to say anything, he decides, when he hears the blundering on the bus steps, the burst of laughter and someone who sounds like Butcher whooping and calling out something indistinct, taunting. _Fuck your mom_ , Brendon shouts back, and then there are the sounds of the bus door swinging open, slamming against the wall, and the stutter of Brendon’s feet in the front lounge.

Ryan doesn’t like the way Brendon’s face changes when he finally notices Ryan sitting on the left couch; a wariness and readiness drawing the open lines of his body tight. “Hey,” he says, and Ryan nods at him.

There’s a pause and a silence, and Ryan doesn’t look at Brendon’s eyes, but the pale paleness of his skin, the dark wings of his hair swooping in sharp points, framing his face.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” Brendon asks, lifting his chin and making Ryan look at him, direct. “Come on, Ross, let me have it.”

“Yeah, you’d like that,” Ryan says, and looks away.

Brendon’s mouth curls a little. “Oh, we’re being passive aggressive, now?” His voice is only slightly different from when he’s sober, just slightly more unbound, slightly louder. Ryan doesn’t know why that loosening makes him so uneasy, like anything could happen. “You know, I finally don’t have to live my life the way other people want me to, and I’m not going to do it for you. Why do you have to control things so much?”

Ryan was expecting a fight, and the question throws him off balance; it’s curious and regretful, not angry.

“I don’t know,” he says, and Brendon sighs, gustily, and sits down next to him.

“Yeah, I know,” he mumbles, and leans a little so his shoulder presses against Ryan’s. “You need to lose the stick, Ryan.”

They look at each other a little too long. .Ryan jolts to his feet. “I’m going to bed.”

In the morning when Brendon’s stumbling disjointed and bleary-eyed around the bus, Ryan brushes his knuckles against Brendon’s spine in a slow, unexpected downward sweep that sends strangeness shocking over Brendon’s skin; a threat and a caress and the simple touch of bodies.

-

Ryan sets his own mic back in its stand and walks slowly across the stage to Jon; he plays at him until Jon lifts his eyes from his fingers and grins, stops concentrating so hard on the bassline, even though he’s been playing it fine just about every night for the past few weeks.

He walks over to Brendon, next. Next tour it will be planned, but today it's just something Brendon decides to do, palm and fingers curling around Ryan's cheek and the curve of his jaw as he pulls him in towards his mic; gentle, gentle, their foreheads touching, singing together, sweat running down their temples.

After the show, someone says “Hey, it’s Myrtle Beach, where’s the water?”, and somehow they all end up walking a mile to the beach; the Hushies, the dancers, the crew. Ryan always vaguely blames the whole thing on Greta, but he’s never sure how accurate that is.

When they get there, they stand uncertain on the shore for a while, kicking at the sand and wading up to their ankles in the surf. None of them have swimsuits, but after a few minutes a guy from the crew shouts _fuck this_ and shucks off his shirt and jeans, and then everyone starts taking off their clothes.

Ryan folds his shirt and pants neatly on top of each other, then folds the red vest on top of them, the roses fluttering faintly in the breeze. He puts his shoes on top of the pile, to stop them blowing away, and decides not to worry about their condition for the show tomorrow. Some chances only come once, and you should take them while you can.

The water’s not that cold, since it’s the tail-end of summer, and Ryan wades quietly out to his waist, listening to the sounds of splashing and shrieking, laughter. His eyes are blurry with saltwater, like a newborn’s, and he stares up at the sky like it’s new and unfamiliar; dark and full of moody cloud, lit up by the moon, but he can still see stars in the cloudbreaks, bright against utter blackness. Ryan thinks about sharks and jellyfish coiling around his ankles, brushing lovingly against his flanks, and carrying him deeper into the sea.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Brendon whoops as he crashes into the surf, waves thundering around his ankles. Ryan looks back and sees him standing there bare in water to his knees, pale and naked, his penis curled small and pink between his legs. It doesn’t even feel sexy, the way it did when he was trying not to look when Katie or Greta took their clothes off; just private, like something too vulnerable to look at, burned into his eyes all the same.

Ryan looks away, and when he looks back next, Brendon’s up to his armpits, grinning madly and tossing wet hair out of his face with a flick of his head, small drops of water scattering like beads through the air.

-

Jon and Spencer have gone to sit up on the roof, take a smoke break; even Shane’s stopped filming, turning his camera off and setting it reverently down, wandered off. Brendon doesn’t feel like he can take a break yet. It’s still wrong, it’s not coming together, and the more they push it the worse it feels, forced and stilted. He’s tweaked the music, Ryan’s tweaked the music, but whatever worked for them, pushing the second half of Fever out in six weeks, has stopped running.

Brendon pulls off his headset and sets the microphone down, on the sideboard instead of slotting it back onto its stand. It settles with a muted thud, final.

“It's not working,” Ryan says.

“No.”

Ryan's sharp, razored haircut is growing out, curling in soft lank hanks around his ears, and his arms are surprisingly brown against his soft white shirt. Brendon stares at the harsh curve of one of Ryan’s awkward elbows, and tries not to feel like they’ve reached the end of something.

They don’t seem to be able to look at each other, and Ryan gets up and silently grabs his pack of parliaments, and lights one. He stretches out on the floor; after a moment Brendon joins him, and they lie there on their backs, looking at the ceiling.

“Well, we tried,” Brendon says, when the soft sounds of Ryan inhaling and exhaling get claustrophobic. The tension between them is suddenly different, in the small smoky room that keeps getting smaller and smaller and driving them all slowly mad, coiled and weighted in different ways. Ryan doesn’t say anything, just takes another drag, and then he pulls himself up on one elbow, leans across and kisses Brendon like that’s an answer. He tastes bitter.

Brendon says _Ryan, Ryan_ and means maybe _sorry, sorry_. He touches his arm, neither pulling him closer or pushing him away.

He’s not sure, later, if it counts as making out; they don’t touch anywhere but Brendon’s hand on Ryan’s elbow and the press of their mouths together, seeking and not finding.

When the others finish their smoke break, they’re still lying side by side on the floor, a few feet apart, silent.

“Ready to start again?” Shane asks, nudging at Brendon’s thigh with his foot. The little light on his camcorder is gleaming red, on and off, and Ryan lifts his eyes and stares balefully into the camera.

“I’m going to burn my guitar,” he says, and somewhere in the background, Jon laughs. “I’m going to burn it alive. For treason.”

“That’s it, exorcise the demons,” Spencer says, but that night they give it a Viking funeral. Ryan pours vodka over it, a libation, and holds his flickering lighter to the corpse until it kindles. They watch it blacken and char, the strings warping and snapping free, _weialala leia._

-

It’s summer and the sky is faintly wavering with heat and the hum of life in the air, unfolding like the curl of a gathering wave.

Ryan's happy in an open, unwound way, bright scarves in his hair and draped around his neck, bracelets heavy on his wrists. He touches everyone, small affectionate brushes that would have been unthinkable a year ago - knocking into Spencer, rubbing his head against Jon, hugging Pete tight one-armed around his waist, stooping slightly; staring Mike with love in his eyes, letting Travis heft him up, holding him just high enough off the ground that his toes drag in the dirt like a hanging man. He presses his face into Gabe's shirt front and mutters _friends, best friends_. Love and liquor have been good for him, Brendon thinks; softened some tension that has held him rigid too long, and left him pliable.

Later, after the festival, day turns into soft-grained summer evening with the sky still faintly pink and bright even after the sun has set. There's churned mud everywhere, plains after a stampede, a thousand vanished feet stamping with the beat. The air is heavy and sweet with crushed grass. It's a green smell, a summer smell. Brendon is standing in the middle of the field, eyes shut and thinking, absurdly, that the end of the world is a happy place.

He can hear humming, tuneless and indistinct, and for a moment it sounds like the ghost of the festival, the roar and buzz of the crowd, the static from the speakers, the seething swarm of people, massed and moving. Then it becomes clearer, _here comes the sun, here comes the sun_ , and Brendon opens his eyes and Ryan is weaving his way across the torn grass.

He has a bottle of a beer held laxly in one hand, and his curls lick wildly around his face, and when he sees Brendon looking at him he grins and waves the bottle. “Where have you been?” he calls, too loud, too close. “Everyone’s hanging out, Pete’s been giving everyone dares-”

“Hey,” Brendon says, and when Ryan leans against his side, easy and natural like he was never sharp and taut, Brendon winds an arm around him carelessly, leans down and presses his mouth to Ryan’s cheek, feeling the warmth of his body and the heat of his skin caught in the folds of his shirt.

When he draws back, Ryan's smiling, smiling, his new happy shadowless smile, the one he’s been giving to everyone. “Summer of love,” he says, and Brendon says “Yeah,” and uncurls his grip.

-

Life is pretty good.

Brendon feels it everywhere, on stage with flowers wreathing his micstand, standing in a streaming cloud of crystal bubbles, each reflecting back tiny, rainbow-glossed distortions that don’t feel so far from reality. He imagines peering into one like a convex mirror and seeing himself reflected back, all smile; all teeth.

It’s not a grimace. He stands on stage and smiles, smiles; smile reflecting back from Ryan and Jon’s, in a strange sort of mitosis, splitting and doubling. He sings every note in every song and loves them, and it doesn’t matter that he didn’t write many of them, the new ones; doesn’t matter when Ryan steps up and takes over the verse. He adds his voice, hears Jon chime in, hears them all blend together, against the heartbeat of the drumskin.

 _Life is pretty good, and then you die_ , says the sign on their microwave, amended into cheerfulness from nihilism.

At their last show this tour, Greenwald rushes out from sidestage and hefts Ryan up on his shoulders, blundering around the stage like a blinded steer. Ryan keeps playing, and the drum keeps beating, and the bubbles float out, transitory, their little worlds short-lived and soon to burst. Brendon stands on a Persian carpet, patterned and intricate, and thinks about flying.

-

Ryan’s leaning back against Brendon’s legs, using them as a backrest. He’s sprawled out on the floor of the bus lounge, still in his navy blue suit, with its sharp-pointed collar and broad tie. He’s flipping through a magazine and Brendon’s watching something on the TV, rubbing his thumb absently across Ryan’s cheek, one of the small sideburns he’s trying to grow, the little patch of hair rough under the pad of his thumb.

Everything is okay, good; just a little off from last tour, they’re all just a little tired of touring, a little ready to be on break again. Touring with the Cab is a little less smooth than they’d expected. That’s all it is. They’re going to finish up this tour, take a break, write another album. This time they’ll do it right.

Ryan’s slumped back into the touch, tired from the show, but when his phone starts to buzz he jerks upright and grabs for it.

“Anything interesting?” Brendon asks, watching the small change in his face, his eyes running down over the familiar rough hitch of adam's apple in the smooth shape of Ryan's throat, a stutter and a surprise in the line.

Ryan taps something out in reply, and shoves the phone back in his pocket. “Going out,” he says casually, stretching his legs. He grins, conspiratorial. “Hey, did you see that blonde, earlier?”

Brendon knows Ryan pretty well, knows his type; they all do. “Yeah,” he says, and normally he doesn’t say anything, because man, what an exercise in pointlessness and hypocrisy that would be, but it slips out over his tongue this time, too fast to be called back. “You know, you shouldn't-”

Ryan’s mouth goes tight. “Hey,” he says. “You don't get to tell me that, Brendon.”

“Fine, fine, okay.” Brendon says dismissively, rolling his shoulders. He expects the conversation to end there, but Ryan twists to face him, rising up onto his knees. His face is suddenly very close to Brendon’s, smooth and flat like the bronze faceplate of an ancient helmet. Ryan watches at him like he's waiting for something, and Brendon doesn’t say anything.

“It’s none of your business,” Ryan says finally.

“Okay,” Brendon repeats, and he can hear the discordance in his own voice, nervous and off-key. He doesn't know why, or how to reel the word back.

Ryan stays close another few moments, and Brendon doesn’t move, weirdly conscious of the incoherence of his own breathing.

When Ryan finally pulls back, he gets to his feet and leans against the wall, one leg crossed over the other, the creases in his pants still perfectly sharp. His face is almost expressionless, a little pleased and surprised at his success at shutting Brendon up. He looks down at Brendon like he's found out something he doesn't quite know what to do with, something a little strange and a little mixed; something in the way Ryan looks at him and looks at him makes Brendon feel like he wants to take him apart.

“So, I’m going out now,” Ryan says, testing, and Brendon nods in hurried agreement, _just go, just go_ and says nothing more.

-

After the fourth night shifting on the air mattress, listening to Spencer snore across the room and one of Brendon’s dogs snuffling on the floor in its sleep, Ryan can’t take it anymore. Ryan misses his girl and his own dog, likes staying at Brendon’s house, likes hanging out and playing music and the way it feels like being on vacation, but he needs a house of his own out here; he needs a _bed_ , one that doesn’t squeak and protest every time he rolls over.

He agreed with Spencer that they were both going to suck it up and deal with the air mattresses, fair and fair alike; but Spencer’s fast asleep, incredibly, and what he doesn’t know won’t piss him off.

He walks softly down through the kitchen and up the stairs; the California night is still and clear, broken only by the faint humming of the fridge, and the sound of cicadas, and the hesitant shuffle of his feet. He pushes Brendon’s door open and climbs in on the empty side of the bed. The dark space under the covers is warm with trapped air and body heat, intimate.

Brendon moans, _mnmgh_ , and turns his head, peering blearily. “What, Ross?”

“I’m rooming with you tonight,” Ryan whispers, “roll over, give me more space,” and Brendon does, half-asleep and generous.

They sleep.

When Ryan wakes up his field of vision is filled with a heavy curl of shoulder, bare and clean, tanner than Brendon's skin normally is, and freckling. Somehow he’d forgotten that Brendon always sleeps naked, or next thing. His eyes shift, focusing.

Brendon's face is close to his on the pillow, almost a stranger’s like this, so close, and dormant. Ryan looks at it like it’s unfamiliar, cataloguing the faint freckles and the rough stubble growing in; the broad spread of nose, the thousand black eyelashes; the full lips a little open, infinitely plastic.

Brendon breathes evenly, in and out, lungs like a silent bellows, and when the strangeness of the strangeness gets unbearable, Ryan folds back the covers and climbs silently out of bed, and back downstairs.

-

“We should really get started seriously when we get back to the States,” Brendon says lazily, sprawled back in his deckchair by the lagoon-shaped pool. It’s strange and beautiful out here; it’s late and the others have all gone to bed, but the African sky is still redgold with sunset, trees and rocks and the resort buildings inky black against the horizon. It’s weirdly peaceful, even though they don’t hang out like this much any more, just the two of them.

“Mmm,” Ryan says noncommittally, stirring his cocktail with his little stirring stick. All that’s lacking is a paper umbrella; he looks almost like a cliché of a guy on holiday in his pink singlet and open white shirt, the oversized pair of sunglasses hooked into the neckline, the candy-bright beads around his neck and wrists. His hair is growing out curly again.

“No, I mean. I have a bunch of ideas, and I know you do, too. We should see what works, figure out where we’re going this time. I’ve got some stuff written down, and I’ve been talking with Spencer –”

“We’ve got plenty of time,” Ryan says. It sounds more dismissive than Ryan probably means it to. “It’s not like I have a shortage of material this time,” he adds, his mouth twisting. “Out of pain comes art, right?”

Brendon laughs a little and says “Uh, yeah,” because it’s still a bad idea to talk about the Keltie thing with Ryan in any way, much less point out that it's his own fault. He wants to keep pushing about the album; he wants to be part of the whole process this time, not given two songs to do his own thing in, appeasing scraps, but there’s no real way to continue the conversation after that.

Ryan smiles at Brendon crookedly, the little self-conscious ‘I know I’m a fuck up and you know it’ smile that denies all fault and begs forgiveness at the same time. It still works.

Brendon reaches out for his drink on the table between their chairs the same time that Ryan reaches for his. When their fingers brush, Ryan pulls his hand away, too fast, like he’s been burnt, and Brendon’s glass teeters and slops over the table, falling to the tiles. The crash is a harsh, hard noise, the sound of shattering almost liquid, horribly out of place in the milky evening.

“Whoa,” Brendon says stupidly. He looks at Ryan instead of down at the mess, and Ryan looks back at him.

Ryan’s eyes are dark and completely unreadable, and Brendon’s catalogue every small flicker of his lashes, every infinitesimal change in his mouth, the faint flare of his nostrils as he breathes in and out. They’ve had moments like this a million times over the years; Brendon waits for Ryan to sweep on and change the subject, like one of them always does, but Ryan just keeps staring back at him until it’s gone far too long for one of them to say something and slide them neatly over the fracture.

Looking at Ryan like this gives Brendon the same sort of feeling he had that morning, standing on the lichened rocks and looking dizzily down at the world from a strange and disorienting angle, at mountains and sea and cloud, tiny toy houses and surf breaking along the coast like white lace.

Ryan breaks eye contact finally, dropping his eyes; he looks so painfully awkward it’s like looking at someone he used to be, years ago. “Shit,” he says, and laughs casually, as discordant as the earlier sound of breaking glass. “Sorry about that, fuck.” He grabs his own drink, and tilts it back and swallows like he needs the hit.

“Ryan,” Brendon says. Not a question, just his name.

Ryan slides a glance at him sideways, swiftly, and then his eyelids sweep down. “I should, um. I should go to bed,” he says, in a strange blurred voice. He struggles up out of his chair, swinging his feet over the edge, then winces at the glass. “ _Fuck_.”

Brendon reaches out to steady him, but somehow he ends up pulling him down instead. Ryan’s weight punches the breath out of him, slamming into his thighs and belly, and Ryan hisses _fuck_ again, the tension in his body changing, and crashes his mouth against Brendon’s.

Crash is the only way to describe it; painful and messy, teeth and bumping noses and chins. Part of Brendon finds that funny, Ryan with his famous moves and his blonde girls in every city kissing him without any technique at all, biting at his lips, his hips pressing painfully sharp against his own.

He opens his mouth anyway and lets Ryan shove his tongue into his mouth, bites down on it lightly to make Ryan hiss and press down harder against him. Brendon doesn’t let himself think about anything but Ryan’s hard, desperate mouth; somehow his hands are already in the rough silk of Ryan’s hair, the short curls taut around his fingers. He holds Ryan’s face down like that, and doesn’t let him pull back. Eventually he loosens one hand and slides it up under Ryan’s shirt, pushing the stupid pink singlet up, sliding along smoothness and heat and the stippling bones of his back.

Ryan rocks into him, making frustrated noises, like the angle and the friction aren’t enough; when he shoves his hands roughly between them and starts attacking the top button on Brendon’s jeans, it finally cuts through the fog and blur.

Brendon goes still. “Shit,” he says, grabbing for Ryan’s wrists. “Not. Not here, people could see.”

Ryan stares down at him, his breath hot and damp on Brendon’s face, mouth only fractions away. Brendon’s expecting him to roll off and start pretending like this isn’t happening, but Ryan just breathes in and out, jagged, and then nods.

“Okay.”

When he sits back, the loss makes Brendon feel cold and too light, somehow; but Ryan’s practically straddling his lap now, instead of lying on top of him, and the change in pressure against his dick makes him moan, helpless. Ryan makes an interrogative sort of sound, _mmm_ , moves against him, like every stupid filthy dream Brendon’s been having since he was eighteen and pretending didn’t exist in the morning. This feels as unreal as those dreams, even though his mouth is sore and swollen and he wants nothing more in the world than to get his fucking jeans off.

“Your bed’s – your bed’s closer,” he manages. Ryan nods again, and somehow still doesn’t stop this. They stumble awkwardly out of the deck chair and make their way across the tiles, somehow, and then they’re inside. They don’t push the mosquito nets out of the way properly, and the tulle rips with a dull tearing sound when Ryan pushes Brendon down onto the bed and starts pulling at his shirt, his mouth hot and sharp on Brendon’s collarbone, licking and pressing with his small blunt teeth.

“Ryan, Ryan,” Brendon whines helplessly when their chests finally slide bare against each other, Ryan’s stupid necklace pressed hard between them, leaving marks. He feels Ryan shudder against him, hands slipping over Brendon's back like he's desperate for his skin.

“ _Brendon,_ ” Ryan breathes later, when Brendon has his mouth on his dick and two fingers curving up between his legs. It sounds like a revelation. It should feel like the beginning of something, but it doesn’t; it feels like the end.

Brendon’s not really surprised when Ryan’s not there in the morning, nor when he spends the next night on the couch in Jon’s room. He’s not surprised when they get back to LA and Ryan’s worse than usual at returning calls or texts about the album. Spencer’s the one who finally decides to face up to what’s going on, figure it out, and Brendon’s not surprised even when he gets back from that lunch meeting looking strange, and says “Yeah, Ryan thinks – he agrees with me that we’re, uh. We’re going different places, musically, and that maybe, maybe we should be in two different bands.”

-

“...there was really no argument, which is really the best way that could've worked out. I think really everybody will be happy doing what we're doing.”


End file.
